Criollos

The Criollos were a social class in the caste system of New Spain, consisting of people of pure Spanish descent born in the Americas. This put them behind only the Peninsulares, people from the Iberian Peninsula itself. Much of the elite in the Americas consisted of criollos, as did the liberators of Latin America during the early 1800s. Simon Bolivar, Antonio Jose de Sucre, Jose de San Martin, Bernardo O'Higgins, and the other leaders of post-colonial Latin America were criollos, being born in the Americas of pure Spanish descent. The caste system would be abolished with slavery and discrimination under the new societies, but it would not be until decades later that indigenous people would come to office as president of these countries, with Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz of Mexico and Evo Morales of Bolivia breaking the tradition of whites ruling over mestizo majorities.